It’s the moment your body was conceived, when your father’s sperm hit your mother’s egg.

Stop making that face.

It’s not the moment your father ejaculated inside your mother. It’s not the moment the doctor squirted the sperm inside your mother’s cervix. It’s not the moment that your parents were about to learn about backsplash the hard way.

It’s the moment of conception. For those of you unfamiliar with the female anatomy, it takes some time – up to 72 hours – from the introduction of sperm into the woman’s body before one of those lucky gametes digs it’s way through the corona radiata and fuses with the egg to become the other chromosomal half of a person.

And that in itself is NOT a given. There are plenty of epochs that do not turn into zygotes that successfully develop and then implant themselves. The odds are actually against that happening, even in a healthy, fecund woman. On the day of ovulation for a healthy woman at peak fertility, there’s a 30% chance of pregnancy. If she’s not healthy or not at peak fecundity, that drops.

And, even if there is conception, nature is really into abortion, and more zygotes are aborted naturally than not.

What about elective abortion?

What about it? So this is where I can clarify some things: first, your conception isn’t relevant until you’re born. Your pre-natal epoch chart doesn’t matter until there’s a natal chart: in fact, you can’t do a pre-natal epoch chart without a natal chart, because sperm-and-egg meeting isn’t a person who can interact with the universe.

There’s no reason to think a soul enters a zygote, especially since it’s not a given that a zygote is going to turn into a baby. There’s no consensus on when a soul enters a body either, whether it’s before birth, at birth, or even after birth. I imagine that it would be difficult for parents to swallow that their newborn baby does not have a soul, but they could be entirely possible, Because you may not even really need a soul to be alive. You may possibly be able to be a person but not have a soul. I just don’t have a reason to think that those things absolutely must be connected.

Weird?

And politically and morally, we all know that the argument against abortion has nothing to do with the opportunity for a soul to walk the Earth, whether you believe in reincarnation or one-bite-at-the-apple, because we know how anti-choice also means anti-let-me-help-you-with-that-kid-I-forced-you-to-have and how little regard there is for how tough of a decision this is to make and live with for those who have to make that decision.

So, if you’ve had an abortion, don’t worry. You haven’t killed anyone nor have you stopped them from being able to reincarnate. You don’t have bad karma, and there will be no one to answer to. If there was life force there, it just went elsewhere as life force is wont to do, and if perchance some particular soul had its eye on the clump of cells in your uterus, well then better luck next time.

Because that’s what reincarnation would be like during a war or famine, or even a family in which fertility problems is a thing: A lot of better luck next time. In fact, chances are that with all things considered, a soul doesn’t simply get dibs on every potential body and it just has to get some of what it wants when the opportunity arises.

And that’s why we have karma, and why we keep coming back to bullshit: we can only get some of what we want in any given life, so we take what we can get.

I hope you weren’t expecting some thing warmer and fuzzier.

Why even do a chart for the pre-natal epoch?

You didn’t choose so much when to be born as you chose when to arrive on Earth, and your underlying motivation is in the prenatal epoch chart, what you’re bringing with you, and what sort of desires you still carry with you that you could honor once you are born and can affect matter on your own. This is what pushes you to enter incarnation in the first place; the natal chart is the map of the life you’re choosing to experience.

I use the Rosicrucian method to determine the point of Epoch, when the sperm hit the egg and made the potential vessel of incarnation for the soul. This method, roughly, is the natal ascendant or descendant = the Moon in the prenatal epoch, and the Moon in the natal chart is the ascendant or descendant in the pre natal epoch chart. Here’s the method.

Currently, most people use these charts to rectify birth charts, which is actually very crucial when you’re dealing with birth times in standard time, not in local mean (true solar) time. I’ll write more about that later, but basically, your birth time is likely off the natural solar time by a few minutes because your location of birth wasn’t smack on the border of the time zone. For example, the city I was born in was 6 minutes from the time zone line, so the local mean time when I was born was six minutes ahead of the standard time, so my *actual* birth chart is a couple degrees ahead.

But there’s more utility than just rectification.

Your prenatal epoch chart is a like an deeply imbedded internal magnet that pulls you in certain directions. It’s not what you’re conscious of, and it’s not even what you may reason to yourself, but it’s a deep set of wants, needs, talents, and traits that you can choose to draw on or not, to apply to the world via that natal chart or not.

But what can you learn from an epoch chart about a soul? First, you get a few clues as to why they incarnated. Do an overlay of the epoch chart to the natal chart, and where you find planets, asteroids, and other bodies (you will find the Moon with overlay the ascendant/descendant and visa versa automatically) in the same sign and the same degree or near the same degree will show you what the individual wanted to do with this life. It could have been very close to what they were doing before, or it could be something radically different.

Outer planets don’t count because those are generational and slow-moving. These just tell you the generation that the person decided to incarnate into. Also, don’t worry about mathematical points like the Vertex, but do look at the nodal axis to see if there’s any significance. Most people will have the nodes in the same signs in the pre-natal epoch chart if the nodes are early in the signs in the natal chart (nodes move backward in the zodiac). Pay especially close attention to what is conjunct that node. However, even if the nodes in the prenatal Epoque are in different signs then in the natal chart, they still tell you some thing about why the soul chose the hear and now.

For example, someone with a stellium in a particular sign in the prenatal epoch and an angle in that same sign is going to find that the underlying energy of the planets in the prenatal stellium will find expression through that angle. For example, someone with Pisces rising who has the Sun, Moon, and Mercury conjunct in Pisces in the prenatal epoch chart will probably closely identify with the ascendant but also find that people just sort of gravitate to them seeking Piscean things as they that easily deliver Pisces things. For example, people may still come to them looking for compassion or even pity even after they have revealed the rest of their personality to them which may or may not be so sympathetic seeming, and others may come to them especially when it’s a soul mate connection — the soul mate is unknowingly seeking out that lingering Piscean qualities in this person.

Are you looking for each other in this life (or not)?

Here’s some fun stuff:

Do a synastry chart between two prenatal epoch charts to determine 1) what sort of part life karma two people had, and 2) if they intend to find each other in this life.

And just because souls are looking for each other doesn’t mean they’ll find each other — they could very well mistake someone else for the soul mate, The One we’re looking for, and Lord knows we’ve all done this before. Especially when we’re teenagers. But even if we want to believe that the universe finds away, people have an uncanny way of sabotaging things that seem right, repeatedly…as if playing out some sort of past life struggle (hm?).

It’s easier to figure out what sort of past life karma two people had because you can look at the chart and see the conjunctions, other aspects, and overlays. What’s a little harder to determine is whether they intend to find each other now, because this is sort of a sum of all parts for each party that also has to jive with the natal charts. For example:

In a woman’s prenatal epoch, she has Juno and Mercury conjunct the Moon in Pisces and Psyche and Eros conjunct Venus in Capricorn…opposing her Jupiter. One of the reasons that she chose to incarnate is to find that soulmate lover and spouse who will understand her need for independence and help her grow into the person she must become.

In a man’s prenatal epoch chart, he has Venus, Mercury, and Eros conjunct in the first house in Aries. This man’s motivation is impart to learn to communicate love in a direct, uncomplicated way, without fear. The Moon is conjunct an early Aries ascendant, so he wants to maintain his independence in this lifetime despite the fact that he kind of actually doesn’t: this man wants to be the knight in shining armor who reserves the right to rescue again,and again, and again, without every having to take off his armor. This lifetime, he needs to be himself and to be appreciated for his ability to brandish his sword, and he’ll figure out a way to do so in the birth chart.

Overlay these charts. His prenatal Moon is opposite her prenatal Sun, which means that these planets are conjunct his descendant or her ascendant in the natal chart. These two will find each other attractive even if they don’t understand why, even if they don’t actually find each other attractive, and they will be familiar to each other in some way — they may see the other person and insist that they’ve met them before in childhood (the Moon) or as a young adult (the Sun).

That woman’s Venus, Eros, and Psyche stellium is conjunct that man’s Juno. Is this is his soulmate? This stellium is opposed by his Mars and her Jupiter. Jupiter and Mars opposite Venus isn’t necessarily bad — Venus opposite Mars (particularly when the gender identities match the yin and yang) is a consuming fire of desire; it’s a Beatrice and Benedict kind of deep attraction, the “war of courtship” that only turns bad if no one wins and no one conceded. Venus opposite Jupiter in an individual when it comes to love and romance denotes someone over the top romantic, indulgent, very sensual, very seductive, and very focused on physical attraction. But this is a prenatal chart, so the woman may not be outwardly comfortable with being a hopeless romantic unless her birth chart has an outlet for this energy.

However, the real issue is that the Venus/Eros/Psyche/Juno conjunction is the apex of a t-square between their Plutos (same generation) and his Eros/Venus/Mercury. What was it that he wanted or he did in the past that was against society that made it not possible for them to be together without destroying everything? Was this an elicit affair? Was this taboo? Did they have fight the odds to be together? Did he marry too soon (Mercury conjunct Venus = young/child marriages)? Did she seduce him into marriage (Venus conjunct Eros and Psyche)? Wrong side of the tracks? Different races, different religions? It’s curious to note her Moon/Mercury/Juno in Pisces in her pre-natal 12th house: did she get pregnant young in the past life (Moon/Mercury) and have a secret marriage (12th house Juno), or maybe this love affair interfered with or caused her to be sent away (convent, sanitorium, prison, etc.)? Or maybe, just maybe: they were never supposed to be together at all. She could have very well have been a nun who would never be allowed to marry despite wishing so much for love. He could have been someone who lived by his own rules (Aries emphasis) and paid dearly for it (opposing Pluto). His Psyche is in the 8th house conjunct Uranus: does he feel that his devotion causes sudden death and destruction?

And how will this play out in their conscious lives?

They may very well go looking for each other in order to see if it’s possible to have the kind of relationship they want without all the restrictions that they once faced.

The next thing you do is to then cast the synastry chart. Look for any house overlays. For example, if the 12th house is important in the prenatal epoch chart for one person, see if it’s important in the synastry chart, if there’s any conjunctions there. Just as you would any for synastry chart, look for karmic contacts (Moon, Saturn, nodes) and attraction and desire (Mars, Venus, Sun, Moon, love asteroids), etc.

Can you do a synastry reading for me with this?

Yes, I can, but I think it would be best to do that in conjunction with a regular synastry reading because this is the unconscious motivation for the relationships that we just can’t seem to break ourselves from. I wouldn’t want to do a purely pre-natal synastry or composite analysis or session because the main difference is that you have more control over what comes out of a pre-natal epoch because it all has to be filtered through the natal chart, because that’s where you interact with the world. The zygote, the embryo, the fetus does not interact with the world, so whatever the motivation is for rolling the dice and coming back to Earth, it doesn’t mean anything until you can act on it. Make sense?

Will you pre-natal epoch readings for individuals and couples?

Yes.